Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and as you get older, you become more skillful casting them.
- Gore Vidal
Inside my head there currently reside around 15 boxes; Compartmentalized storage containers of unique design. Each one contains a unique story. It’s helpful for me to think of them this way. It’s an organizational thing.
Inside each box I lock up all of the characters, settings, plot lines, monsters, and ideas pertaining to individual stories that I’m either working on or preparing to work on soon. It’s a system that I have painstakingly worked out over many years. For the most part it works fairly well. My mind acts as a stage and each box holds a unique play and everything collected thus far for its production.
For some time now my story “Seven Circles” has occupied that stage. I’ve been holding daily rehearsals, preparing the story for opening night when it will be released for the public, known darkly as agents and publishers.
Each day I open the box, place the settings on the stage, queue the characters, rehearse the plot lines, and advance the story line. When the days rehearsal is complete, I pack it all back in its appropriate box, clearing the stage for normal life to resume. I don’t always close the box though. Sometimes I might have a spare moment or two that I didn’t expect when I can call out a character or two and work out a line of dialogue or a scene detail. It’s helpful to keep it all handy for just such an occasion.
The closed boxes generally just sit quietly and wait. Occasionally a pent up character will shout obscenities through the walls if my imagination wanders close by, or when I pass them over for rehearsal time on stage.
On rare occasions, and today was one of them, a story will escape from a box I have not opened and go running around my stage, wreaking havoc and demanding to be written. Things like the current story, outlines and schedules, deadlines and so on, mean nothing to a protagonist who has been locked in a mind-box for a sufficient amount of time. When a story is that ready to be written, I find myself with basically two choices:
I can pause my can pause my current manuscript, give in to the escapee’s demands, and write the intruding story.
– OR –
I can ignore it and watch progress on my current story grind to a halt due to the mayhem.
Today I tried a different approach. I tried to talk it back into its box. It was tantamount to trying to herd mice: frustrating and exhausting.
“Seven Circles” is nearly complete, but the current work of prepping it for designated readers has left my creative muse painfully idle. It’s taken to kicking boxes.
To make things worse, the rogue story is very clear in my mind. Its groundwork was laid sometime ago. It stands before me; body fully clothed; matured; with nearly all of its details worked out. I need but record it.
It’s a slippery slope, working on two different stories at the same time; alternating stage time; switching between boxes; changing out settings and scenery. I’ve done it before and found characters try to influence each others’ plot lines. They sneak into settings and circumstances not their own. As I said, it’s frustrating. Especially when they are dressed similarly.
I’ll let them both play today, but tomorrow I’m going to go buy some padlocks.
- Gore Vidal
Inside my head there currently reside around 15 boxes; Compartmentalized storage containers of unique design. Each one contains a unique story. It’s helpful for me to think of them this way. It’s an organizational thing.
Inside each box I lock up all of the characters, settings, plot lines, monsters, and ideas pertaining to individual stories that I’m either working on or preparing to work on soon. It’s a system that I have painstakingly worked out over many years. For the most part it works fairly well. My mind acts as a stage and each box holds a unique play and everything collected thus far for its production.
For some time now my story “Seven Circles” has occupied that stage. I’ve been holding daily rehearsals, preparing the story for opening night when it will be released for the public, known darkly as agents and publishers.
Each day I open the box, place the settings on the stage, queue the characters, rehearse the plot lines, and advance the story line. When the days rehearsal is complete, I pack it all back in its appropriate box, clearing the stage for normal life to resume. I don’t always close the box though. Sometimes I might have a spare moment or two that I didn’t expect when I can call out a character or two and work out a line of dialogue or a scene detail. It’s helpful to keep it all handy for just such an occasion.
The closed boxes generally just sit quietly and wait. Occasionally a pent up character will shout obscenities through the walls if my imagination wanders close by, or when I pass them over for rehearsal time on stage.
On rare occasions, and today was one of them, a story will escape from a box I have not opened and go running around my stage, wreaking havoc and demanding to be written. Things like the current story, outlines and schedules, deadlines and so on, mean nothing to a protagonist who has been locked in a mind-box for a sufficient amount of time. When a story is that ready to be written, I find myself with basically two choices:
I can pause my can pause my current manuscript, give in to the escapee’s demands, and write the intruding story.
– OR –
I can ignore it and watch progress on my current story grind to a halt due to the mayhem.
Today I tried a different approach. I tried to talk it back into its box. It was tantamount to trying to herd mice: frustrating and exhausting.
“Seven Circles” is nearly complete, but the current work of prepping it for designated readers has left my creative muse painfully idle. It’s taken to kicking boxes.
To make things worse, the rogue story is very clear in my mind. Its groundwork was laid sometime ago. It stands before me; body fully clothed; matured; with nearly all of its details worked out. I need but record it.
It’s a slippery slope, working on two different stories at the same time; alternating stage time; switching between boxes; changing out settings and scenery. I’ve done it before and found characters try to influence each others’ plot lines. They sneak into settings and circumstances not their own. As I said, it’s frustrating. Especially when they are dressed similarly.
I’ll let them both play today, but tomorrow I’m going to go buy some padlocks.
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